Man convicted of shooting pregnant teller during Indy bank robbery gets 53-year sentence

Man gets prison for shooting pregnant bank teller

INDIANAPOLIS — A judge gave a 53-year prison sentence to a man convicted of shooting a pregnant teller during a bank robbery and causing the deaths of her unborn twins.

The April 2008 shooting led to a change in state law increasing the prison term for anyone who murders or attempts to murder a pregnant woman and causes the loss of her unborn child.

Katherin Shuffield was five months’ pregnant when she was shot in the abdomen during the robbery at a Huntington Bank branch in Indianapolis. The fetuses died two days later.

Shuffield told the judge during Friday’s court hearing that she and her husband, Jason, had been excited about the approaching births of their twin daughters. Her voice began to crack when she described what it might be like to raise 1-year-olds now.

“We will never hear them laugh, or speak their first words or take their first steps,” Shuffield said.

Brian Kendrick, 31, was convicted by a jury last month on charges of attempted murder, robbery, two counts of feticide and illegal handgun possession.

He faced up to 87 years in prison, but Marion Superior Court Judge Kurt Eisgruber ruled Kendrick’s previous criminal record of a couple misdemeanors didn’t merit a maximum sentence. He ordered Kendrick to serve 30 years for attempted murder, 14 years for robbery, four years for each feticide count and one year for the handgun violation.

Dolma Kendrick asked the judge to show mercy for her son, saying she and Kendrick’s father had spent much of his childhood in prison and that he was raised for long stretches by an abusive grandmother.

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi complained after Kendrick’s arrest that he could only be charged with a class C felony — carrying a sentence of two to eight years in prison — for the deaths of each fetus.

State law at the time only allowed prosecutors to file murder charges in the death of a fetus when the mother was at least seven months’ pregnant.

Legislators changed the law last year making feticide a class B felony punishable by six to 20 years in prison. The new law also allowed up to 20 years of additional prison time for those convicted of attempted murder, murder or felony murder if they cause the loss of a pregnancy.